The Lesson of Her Death (12 page)

They had weathered a near-bankruptcy, the deaths of Diane’s father and Corde’s mother, a stroke that made Corde’s father forever a stranger and then the old man’s death, and some bad problems when the family was living in St. Louis.

Lately Corde was spending more and more time
on
cases, away from home. Yet oddly the brooding sense of threat she felt did not come from his long hours or moody obsession with his work. Rather, Diane Corde
felt that for some reason it was the trouble with Sarah that was driving them apart. She did not understand this at all but she sensed the momentum of the rift and sensed too, in her darker moments, its inevitability.

She looked at her watch, felt a burst of irritation at having been kept waiting then looked at the receptionist, who moved the gum around in her mouth until she found it a comfy home and continued addressing bills.

Question 11. Does your husband
…

The door to the inner office opened and a woman in her late thirties stepped out. She wore a beautiful pink suit, radiant, vibrating. Diane studied the dress before she even glanced at the woman’s face.
That is a tart’s color
. A formal smile on her lips, the woman said, “Hello, I’m Dr. Parker. Would you like to come in?”

Ohmagod, she’s a fake! Here she is just a Mary K rep who won the Buick and is on to better things. As she stood, Diane thought hard how to escape. Vet’s office, pink suit and the woman’s only references had been the yellow pages. But despite the misgivings Diane continued into the office. She sat in a comfortable armchair. Dr. Parker closed the door behind them. The room was small, painted yellow and—another glitch—contained no couch. All psychiatrists’ offices had couches. That much Diane knew. This office was furnished with two armchairs across from a virtually empty desk, two answering machines, a lamp and a clean ashtray on a pedestal. A cube box of Kleenex.

The doctor’s thick gold bracelet clanked on the desktop as she uncapped a pen and took a notebook from the desk.

On the other hand, the doctor passed the wall test. One side of the room was filled with somber, stout books like
Psychodynamics in the Treatment of Near-Functioning Individuals
and
Principles of Psychopharmacology
. On the facing wall were the diplomas. Dr. Parker had graduated from the University of Illinois, cum laude, from Northwestern Medical School and from the American College of Psychiatrists. Three
schools! Diane, who had limboed out of McCullough Teachers’ College with a B-minus average, looked at the squirrelly proclamations full of Latin or Greek phrases and seals and stamps then turned back to find the doctor gazing expectantly at her.

“Well,” Diane said, and folded her sweating hands in her lap. She felt the wave of tears slosh inside her. She opened her mouth to tell the doctor about Sarah and said instead, “Are you new in town?”

“I opened my practice a year ago.”

“A year,” Diane said. “New Lebanon a little quiet for you?”

“I like small towns.”

“Small towns.” Diane nodded. A long moment of silence. “Well, it is a small town. That’s true.”

Dr. Parker said, “When you called you mentioned your daughter. Why don’t you tell me about her.”

Diane’s mind froze. “Well.”

The doctor’s pen hovered, ready to scoot along the paper, dragging the eighteen-karat bracelet behind.

Diane blurted, “Our Sarah’s been having some problems in school.”

“How old is she?”

“Nine.”

“And how many months?”

“Uh, six.”

“That’s fifth grade?”

“Fourth. We held her back a year.”

“Tell me about her problem.”

“She’s a smart girl. She really is. Some of the things that come out of her mouth …” Examples vanished from Diane’s mind. “But she has this attitude.… And she’s lazy. She doesn’t try. She won’t do her homework. She fails her tests. I was reading this book?
Your Hidden Child.”
She paused, waiting for Dr. Parker to approve the paperback. The doctor lifted her eyebrows quizzically, which gave Diane the impression she didn’t think much of the book. “It said that children sometimes behave badly because they want attention.”

“You said she’s smart. Do you know her IQ?”

“I don’t remember,” Diane said, flinching. This was something she should have looked up. “I’m sorry. I—”

“It doesn’t matter. We can get it from the school.”

“But she acts hostile, she acts stupid, she has temper tantrums. And you know what happens? She
gets
attention. I think that’s a lot of why she seems to be slow. We have another child—Sarah’s the second—so we think that she feels jealous. Which is crazy because we spend lots of time with her. Much more than we do with Jamie. I don’t let her get away with it. I don’t put up with any nonsense from her. But she doesn’t listen to me anymore. It’s like she tunes me out. So what I’d like you to do is talk to her. If
you
tell her—”

“Has she ever seen a therapist or counselor about this?”

“Just a counselor at her school. The New Lebanon Grade School. He recommended that book to me. Then I talked to our pediatrician about it. Dr. Sloving? He’s an expert with children?”

Dr. Parker apparently did not engage in the practice of confirming parents’ opinions. She looked at Diane pleasantly and said nothing.

“Anyway we went to Dr. Sloving and he prescribed Ritalin for her.”

“For attention deficit?”

This gave Diane a burst of relief, thinking that at least dottering old Sloving had diagnosed the problem correctly.

Dr. Parker continued, “Was she behaving in an unruly way, overly active? Any compulsive behavior—like washing her hands frequently?”

“Oh, she’s restless a lot. Jittery. Always running around. Nervous. She drives me to distraction.”

“Did Dr. Sloving give her any psychological testing?”

“No. He took a blood sample.” Diane was blushing and looked away from the doctor. “But he’s known her
all her life.… I mean, he
seemed
to think it was the best form of treatment.”

“Well,” said stern Dr. Parker, “if attention deficit is the diagnosis what brings you to see me?”

“I think the medicine’s working.” Diane hesitated. “But not too well. In fact sometimes I don’t think it does any good, to be honest with you. It makes her very, I don’t know, spacy at times. And it upsets her stomach and seems to make her more jittery. She says it gives her the tummy squabbles.” She looked down at her hands and found to her astonishment that her knuckles were white as ivory. “The truth is she seems to be getting worse. Her grades are still terrible. Yesterday she tried to run away. She’s never done that before. And her temper tantrums are more violent too. She talks back more than she ever did. She also talks to herself.”

“Let me ask you a few things.…”

An avalanche of questions followed. Diane tried to understand where the doctor was headed. But it was useless; just when Diane would think she understood what the doctor had in mind, she would throw a curve.

“Does she watch much TV?”

“Two hours in the evening, only when her homework’s done. Actually she likes movies more. She thinks most sitcoms and commercials are stupid. She calls them yucky.”

A miniature smile made a reappearance. “I’m inclined to agree. Go on.”

“She pretends she doesn’t learn things quickly.… I know she’s, I don’t want to say, faking.…” Diane realized she just had. “Well, she picks up some things so fast that when she acts stupid, it rings false.”

“What’s easy for her?”

“Remembering movies and stories we’ve read to her. And the characters in them. She can act out scenes perfectly. She can remember dialogue. Oh and guessing the endings of movies. Dressing up in costumes. She loves costumes. But it’s all things like that—pretend things. Anything having to do with real life—school, cooking,
gym, bike riding, games, sports, sewing … All that seems beyond her.” Diane looked away from the doctor’s eyes. “The other day she wet her pants in front of the class.”

Dr. Parker’s mouth tightened and she shook her head. Diane watched her record in a tiny, cold notation a fact that would probably dog her daughter for the rest of her life. Diane took a Kleenex and pretended to blow her nose then twined the paper between her strong fingers and slowly shredded it into confetti.

More questions. This was hard. Diane tried, oh she did, but her way was to keep family flaws hidden like her mother’s jewelry—anything real, anything diamond, anything gold was to be trotted out only on rare, vital occasions. It took all her strength to give this sleek, chic-suited stranger these facts—about Bill, about Jamie, about the grandparents, about Sarah’s shyness and her wily manipulation. Dr. Parker glanced at her watch.
Is she bored?

The doctor asked, “When you were pregnant did you drink or take any kind of medication?”

“I didn’t drink, no. Occasionally I took a Tylenol. But only a couple of times. I knew it wasn’t good.”

“How is your relationship with your husband?”

“Excellent. Good.”

“Do you quarrel openly? Have you ever talked about divorce?”

“No. Never.”

“Do either of you drink now or take drugs?”

“We drink socially is all,” an offended Diane said. “We never do drugs. We go to church.”

There was a pause while the doctor’s hand sped along the page. Diane said, “So we were thinking that if somebody like you, a doctor, told her she should cut out this nonsense and get down to work, well, then …” Her voice tapered off.

The doctor chewed her thin lower lip, lifting off a fleck of lipstick. The expensive pen got capped. The teeth released the lip and the doctor leaned back in her
leather chair. “I’ve worked with learning disabled children before—”

“But she’s not disabled,” Diane said quickly. “I told you, her IQ—”

Dr. Parker said, “A learning disability isn’t a function of IQ. It’s—”

“Doctor,” Diane explained patiently, “Sarah is a smart, shy little girl. She’s learned a …” Diane remembered a phrase from the
Hidden Child
book. “… pattern of behavior to get attention from my husband and me and her teachers. We’ve played into her hand. Now we need an expert like you to tell her to buckle down and get to work. She’s gotten away with too much from us. She’ll listen to you. That’s why I’m here.”

Dr. Parker waited a moment then spoke. “I want to say something to you and you can think about it and talk it over with your husband. First, I should tell you—based on what you’ve told me—I’m not sure your daughter suffers from attention deficit disorder. Some psychiatrists feel that ADD is a condition different from hyperactivity. From my own research I think they’re intertwined. If I understand correctly, Sarah doesn’t show general overactivity—what we call hyperkinetic behavior. Her restlessness may be secondary; she has other problems and they in turn make her jittery and anxious. Ritalin is a temporary measure at best.”

“But Dr. Sloving said it would help her to learn now and that she’d retain what she did learn.”

“I understand and there’s something to be said for that. But with all respect to your internist, I feel doctors are prescribing Ritalin a little too quickly. Many parents prefer a diagnosis of ADD because they’d rather see a physical than a psychological explanation for their children’s troubles.”

“Sarah is not crazy,” Diane said icily.

“Absolutely not,” the doctor said emphatically. “A developmental disability is a common and treatable problem. In our days it translated as stupid or lazy or
recalcitrant. Professionals don’t think of it that way anymore. But a lot of people do.”

Diane felt the sting of criticism coming from the doctor’s placid face. She said abruptly, “Why, how can you say that? You should see all the work Bill does with her. And every day I march her downstairs and make her do her homework. Sometimes I spend an hour before breakfast with her.”

The doctor said in a soothing voice, “I’m sure it’s been very difficult for you and your husband. But it’s important to put aside our thoughts that she’s lazy or stupid or just ornery.”

“It was very hard to come here in the first place,” Diane blurted angrily. “I just want you to tell her to buckle down, to—”

Dr. Parker smiled. “I know this is difficult for you, Mrs. Corde. You’d like a quick fix for your daughter’s troubles. But I don’t think we’re going to find one. If she has a developmental problem, as I think she does, then the treatment requires the parents to expect
less
from the child, not more. We want to reduce the stress and pressure on her.”

“But that’s just what
she
wants.”

Dr. Parker lifted her hands and although she was smiling Diane believed the gesture meant the doctor had won this round. She boiled at this woman, who was making the meeting into a contest over her daughter’s fate. She didn’t grow any calmer when the doctor said, “First, I’ll do a series of tests to determine exactly what the problems are.”

Oh, I can psyche you out, honey. The dollar signs are looming
.

“Then I’ll have her come in for regular sessions and we’ll treat her—probably in conjunction with learning specialists.”

“Well,” Diane said coldly, still stupefied by what she saw was a dressing-down.

Dr. Parker asked, “Shall we schedule an appointment?”

Diane summoned sufficient etiquette to say politely, “I think I should talk it over with Bill.”

She stood up and watched the pink-suited bitch also rise, smile warmly and extend her hand, saying, “I look forward to hearing from you. It’s been a pleasure.”

For you maybe
. Unsmiling, Diane shook the doctor’s hand, then walked out the door.

Outside the office, in the parking lot, she tore the doctor’s card in four pieces and sailed them into the breeze.

Corde and T.T. Ebbans stood over a desk in the main room of the Sheriff’s Department, poring over the computer printout that Ebbans had ordered from the county data base. It was headed:
Known Sex Offenders, Convicted, By Offense
.

In the past three years the district attorney had prosecuted or pled out eleven rapists, four aggravated sexual assaulters, three child molesters, three exhibitionists (“Hell, flashers, you mean.…”), a couple of peepers, and three excessively embarrassed residents whose offenses involved livestock.